Vehicle communication systems enhance the aural experience for vehicle occupants. Such communication systems can include speakers providing acoustic output and one or more microphones receiving acoustic input for voice commands or for hands-free communication operations. Some systems are configured to detect acoustic input and to analyze the detected acoustic input for determining that a vehicle occupant has spoken. Such analysis can be dependent on speech recognition operations.
Further, it can be desirable to reduce acoustic output (e.g., music playing on the radio) such that vehicle occupants can conduct hands-free operations or conduct a conversation with other vehicle occupants. A vehicle occupant can reduce acoustic output by manually actuating an input device (e.g., volume control knob, volume control button, or touch input) of the vehicle communication system. However, it can be cumbersome to repetitively manipulate a volume control knob for decreasing the loudspeaker output volume prior to an intra-vehicle conversation and for restoring the loudspeaker output volume to previous levels upon completion of the intra-vehicle conversation.
Similar reference numerals may have been used in different figures to denote similar components.